Winning Campaigns
Political practitioners poorly predict which messages persuade the public
David Broockman et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 5 November 2024
Abstract:
Do political practitioners have good intuitions about how to persuade the public? Longstanding theories that political elites' messages have large effects on public opinion and the large sums spent to secure some practitioners' messaging advice suggest they should. However, findings regarding the surprising limits of expert forecasts in other domains suggest they may not. In this paper, we evaluate how well political practitioners can predict which messages are most persuasive. We measured the effects of N=172 messages about 21 political issues using a large-sample survey experiment (N=67,215 respondent-message observations). We then asked both political practitioners (N=1,524 practitioners, N=22,763 predictions) and laypeople (N=21,247 respondents, N=63,442 predictions) to predict the efficacy of these messages. The practitioners we surveyed ranged widely in their experience and expertise with persuasive message design. We find that: (a) political practitioners and laypeople both performed barely better than chance at predicting persuasive effects; (b) once accounting for laypeople's inflated expectations about the average size of effects, practitioners did not predict meaningfully better than laypeople; (c) these results held even for self-identified issue experts and highly experienced practitioners; and (d) practitioners' experience, expertise, information environment, and demographics did not meaningfully explain variation in their accuracy. Our findings have theoretical implications for understanding the conditions likely to produce meaningful elite influence on public opinion as well as practical implications for practitioners.
Two terms of endearment? Incumbent-party performance in US presidential elections
John Kane
Political Science Research and Methods, forthcoming
Abstract:
Presidential elections are arguably the most consequential recurring political event in the United States. Understanding the factors that determine their outcomes, therefore, is of substantial importance. One proposed factor pertains to presidential candidates' incumbency status, yet its nature is complex and difficult to study with observational data. In particular, the individual-level mechanisms underlying incumbency effects remain unclear. This study proposes many citizens generally believe that, ceteris paribus, presidents should be afforded two terms. Crucially, such a norm implies that incumbency status possesses an inherent effect, operating independent of other mechanisms that may stem from incumbency. A large, pre-registered survey experiment was therefore employed to isolate the effect of incumbency status on presidential vote choice. The experiment finds strong evidence that one-term incumbent candidates have an inherent advantage against their non-incumbent opponents. The results also clarify that the two-term disadvantage present in observational data is not inherent, and is perhaps better understood simply as the absence of the one-term advantage. The study thus points toward a micro-foundational mechanism underlying incumbent-party performance in presidential elections. Finally, analyses of panel data explore which voters may be systematically inclined to vote based upon the incumbency status of presidential candidates.
The Impact of Inflation on Support for Kamala Harris in the 2024 Presidential Election
David Steinberg, Daniel McDowell & Erdem Aytac
Johns Hopkins University Working Paper, November 2024
Abstract:
Inflation is unpopular with voters and is widely believed to harm the popularity of incumbents. High inflation following the Covid-19 pandemic has been identified as a key reason for poor incumbent performance at the polls around the world, including the defeat of the Harris-Walz ticket in the 2024 US Presidential election. Such conjectures align with existing research showing that voters' inflation perceptions are associated with poor evaluations of incumbent parties. Yet observational studies cannot eliminate the possibility that the causal relationship runs the other way, where opposition to incumbent governments causes individuals to report higher price increases. To help overcome this inferential challenge, this study draws on an experiment embedded in a large, nationally representative, survey fielded just days before the 2024 US Presidential election. We find that priming Americans to think about inflation reduces approval of the Biden-Harris administration and lowers confidence in the Democrats' ability to manage the economy. Moreover, we find this effect is most pronounced among Independents and Democrats, precisely the voters Harris-Walz needed to win the election, suggesting that inflation likely contributed to the Democrats' defeat.
The Trump Advantage in Policy Recall Among Voters
Jan Zilinsky, Joshua Tucker & Jonathan Nagler
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research in political science suggests campaigns have a minimal effect on voters' attitudes and vote choice. We evaluate the effectiveness of the 2016 Trump and Clinton campaigns at informing voters by giving respondents an opportunity to name policy positions of candidates that they felt would make them better off. The relatively high rates of respondents' ability to name a Trump policy that would make them better off suggests that the success of his campaign can be partly attributed to its ability to communicate memorable information. Our evidence also suggests that cable television informed voters: respondents exposed to higher levels of liberal news were more likely to be able to name Clinton policies, and voters exposed to higher levels of conservative news were more likely to name Trump policies; these effects hold even conditioning on respondents' ideology and exposure to mainstream media. Our results demonstrate the advantages of using novel survey questions and provide additional insights into the 2016 campaign that challenge one part of the conventional narrative about the presumed non-importance of operational ideology.
Who wins when? Election timing and descriptive representation
Zoltan Hajnal, Vladimir Kogan & Agustin Markarian
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine how the timing of local elections affects the success of minority candidates, who remain woefully underrepresented in public office. We build on research showing that concurrent elections narrow racial gaps in voter turnout and leverage changes in the timing of local elections in California. Our analysis shows that filling local offices in November of even years increases minority officeholding, at least for some groups. The results demonstrate how, when, and for whom election timing matters. Latinos gain most, potentially at the expense of White and, to a lesser degree, Black representation. An investigation of potential mechanisms suggests that these effects depend on group population size and the magnitude of the turnout changes. An increase in the number of co-ethnic candidates running also appears to contribute to the representational benefits of on-cycle elections. Finally, the effects are most pronounced during presidential elections, when turnout improvements are largest.
District Competitiveness Increases Voter Turnout: Evidence from Repeated Redistricting in North Carolina
Robert Ainsworth, Emanuel Garcia Munoz & Andres Munoz Gomez
Quarterly Journal of Political Science, October 2024, Pages 387-432
Abstract:
We study whether competitive legislative districts cause higher voter turnout. To do so, we employ rich data on the 2006 to 2020 elections in North Carolina. We make use of variation in district competitiveness due to repeated bouts of redistricting, a process in which district boundaries are redrawn. Specifically, we compare people who share the same districts in each legislative chamber (U.S. House, NC Senate, NC House) before redistricting but who differ in districts after redistricting. We match these people on demographics, party registration, and pre-redistricting turnout. We then track their turnout behavior in post-redistricting elections. For the U.S. House, switching from an uncompetitive "80-20" district to a competitive "55-45" district increases turnout by a rate of 1 percentage point per election of exposure. For the state chambers, the magnitude is 0.6. Effects are highly persistent and sum across chambers. They appear to be explained in part by a learning channel, where living in a competitive district induces people to believe that races can be competitive.
Do working-class candidates activate class-based voting?
Jared Abbott & Fred DeVeaux
Electoral Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
After steadily leaving the Democratic Party, working-class voters are increasingly seen as pivotal in US elections. What type of candidates should parties nominate to win over working-class voters? Parties often nominate candidates based on characteristics they think will appeal to certain groups of voters. These typically include campaign messages, such as policy positions or rhetoric, but can also include descriptive characteristics. In this paper we use a conjoint experiment to test whether candidates' class background can activate class-based voting. Overall, we find that a candidate's occupation has a substantial effect on voter perceptions: working-class respondents are 6.4 percentage points more likely to prefer a candidate with a working-class occupation over one with an upper-class occupation. This effect is not driven by inferences that respondents make about candidates' policy positions or group-based rhetoric. Instead, we find that working-class voters perceive working-class candidates as more understanding of their problems. Our results suggest that candidates' class background is an underappreciated yet effective mechanism for activating class-based voting.
Abortion Ballot Measures Have Spillover Effects on Election Outcomes
Graham Gardner, Kayleigh McCrary & Melissa Spencer
Texas Christian University Working Paper, September 2024
Abstract:
In the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, Democratic candidates lost fewer than predicted seats and stymied an expected red wave. News coverage and polling data represent this surprise Democratic success as a result of voters' response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Using county-level vote data, we find that the decrease in Republican vote margin in 2022 can be explained by demographic and economic factors. However, relative to the national average, the Republican vote margin decreased by 4.8 percentage points more in states with abortion-related ballot measures. Our results indicate that abortion ballot measures have spillover effects on election outcomes of a magnitude large enough to determine competitive races.
Measuring Lost Votes by Mail
Michael Morse et al.
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, October 2024
Abstract:
The rise of mail balloting has led to concerns that procedural requirements can lead to "lost votes by mail." We theorize how procedural requirements can affect the incidence and form of lost votes and highlight three measurement issues with equating lost votes and rejected mail ballots. First, coverage: not all rejected mail ballots are documented. Second, substitution: some people whose mail ballot is rejected may subsequently successfully vote, particularly if they were notified in time to take action. Third, deterrence: others may not return their mail ballots if they expect them to be rejected. While rejected mail ballots could over- or underestimate lost votes, a case study of Pennsylvania's 2022 general election reveals at least 47% more lost votes than rejected mail ballots. These lost votes could prove electorally consequential in Pennsylvania given the number of mail ballots cast and the substantial partisan splits on mail versus in-person ballots.
Do Billboard Advertisements Increase Voter Turnout? A Large-Scale Field Experiment
Donald Green et al.
Quarterly Journal of Political Science, June 2024, Pages 307-330
Abstract:
Although an extensive experimental literature has tested a wide array of voter mobilization tactics, billboard advertisements have seldom been evaluated, and studies to date have been limited to a small number of sites. This essay reports results from a nationwide experiment conducted during the 2020 general election in the United States. Experimental sites were ethnically diverse locations in metro areas, including both presidential battlegrounds as well as places with no closely contested races. A total of 298 billboards were randomly assigned to treatment or control in 155 geographic clusters. Exposure to billboards by residential location is modelled using cell phone usage patterns. Turnout is measured using public records for residents living at various distances from randomly assigned billboards. Using a variety of estimation approaches, we obtain point estimates that are close to zero, with hints of stronger effects among those who reside near treated billboards. On the whole, it appears that signage does little to raise turnout in high-salience elections.